Potions Master
by Corran Nackatori
Summary: Musings on the nature of potions masters and the name of a potion. Nearly stream of consciousness, but formatted to paragraphs.


Disclaimer: I own neither Harry Potter, nor Hamlet, nor Time, so remember that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.

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I am a potions master; my life is ruled by logic.

Do you know what an algorithm is? It's a "logical" device, based on two truths and an inference.

My husband was a werewolf.

A werewolf ruined my life.

According to algorithms, my husband ruined my life.

It was true, in a way, no matter how I wanted to protest it. Had I not met him, I would have a life. Slaving away to a potion all day is not life.

Life is laughter. Life is pain. Life is deep, with too much going on to keep track of.

As such, I had been dead since that day.

I am a Potions Master. I worked hard for that title. NEWT level courses for two years, followed by four years of special schooling and two of apprenticeship are no rolling boil.

But I had my own motivation.

I don't know how he caught my eye. He was neither loud and boisterous nor shy and retreating. By nature Potion Masters are as controlled as their brews, with enough backbone for five Aurors. Anything less desiccated under the ruthless masters. There is no room for mistake in potions, and those who follow directions blindly soon find themselves tossed out like yesterday's lacewings.

Still, we managed. Over steaming vats of lavender sludge and wooden handles stirring counterclockwise, his smile seeped its way into my heart.

I found him again the day after I left my apprenticeship. He looked up, and smiled, and the two years disappeared like powdered rat eyes in water.

We are Potions Masters. We do not rush. We married two months after that.

We should have married that day.

We had finally moved into a house of our own five months after our marriage. It was a sturdy cottage, settled on the edge of a forest, perfect for gathering materials. The basement had running water, and the walls had been reinforced by the original muggle owners; I think they said it was a bomb shelter. The kitchen was expansive, with more cabinets than the holes in pumice. It was perfect.

It was too good to be true.

We were out gathering fluxweed, it is most potent at the full moon you see, when it happened. Out of the woods came a grayish creature, long snout, loping on four legs quite gracefully. I remember thinking it looked graceful, and strong, like the falcons my family ostensibly kept as for post, but really used for hunting.

Graceful, like a bird of prey.

He was down before I had drawn myself from my admirations, and I barely had time to register my horror before I saw my knife, which I had still been harvesting with, was flying at it. Before I saw it strike the creature's side.

The wolf ripped itself off its prey and darted away, howling in pain. Belatedly I looked down at my hand, expecting still to see the glint of the moonlight off the silver blade.

My hand was empty.

I dashed over to his side and started to bind his leg. His hand stopped me.

Better to let him die, he said. Better to let death separate us, and not the Ministry. Death was kinder to his Kind.

His Kind?

He said nothing, but the full moon reflected in his eyes told me everything his mouth did not.

I am a Potions Master. We're known for our perception, after all.

The next morning, a Ministry wizard in formal robes knocked on my door. I never saw my husband again.

Werewolves are allowed neither wives nor children, for fear of their taint spreading to those under their "control".

The day after, I locked myself in the fortified basement.

I am a Potions master. I know I have to take care of my body to keep my mind, and potions aren't made from air. So I crept out every so often for ingredients to feed my potion and myself.

But never meat. One can never eat meat after seeing their husband's leg cut up like one, no matter how steely-gutted a potions master.

On the second day of my not-life, all the fluxweed in the house somehow was mistaken as fuel for the fire.

If it escaped my mind that magical fires need no fuel, or that the noxious fumes would sting tears out of my eyes, I was, of course, mad from grief.

Of course.

Today, I looked up. The moon was dark. The potion was sent.

Nine months, nine failed potions, but this time will work.

This time.

Surely.

I will call it "Wolfsbane", I muse as I slip away to sleep.

To sleep—perchance to dream, as always, of golden eyes and ruby blood. St. George guard my dreams and aide me in my conquest.

I will succeed. I will kill the wolf, free the man.

I am a potions master.

* * *

A/N: This is my answer to why the potion is called Wolfsbane. It always sounded more like a poison than a cure with a name like that.

For those of you that don't know, a "bane" is your undoing, your death. In Lord of the Rings, the One Ring is also known as Isildur's Bane because it caused him to die.

"To sleep—perchance to dream" is a quote from Shakespeare's Hamlet, in the famous "To be or not to be" speech.

St. George is the patron saint of England, famous for slaying a dragon.


End file.
